Hans En Grietje (Hansel and Gretel)

Hans & Grietje (Hansel & Gretel)

Hansel and Gretel and the gingerbread house came to the Fairytale Forest in 1955.

If you are walking through the forest in the dark. Keep your eye out for fireflies as you make your way from Hansel & Gretel to Frau Holle.

Story

Originally a Grimm tale.

At the edge of a big black forest lived a poor woodcutter with his wife and two children, Hansel and Gretel.
One day, when all of their money was spent, his wife came up with an idea:
“There’s only one solution. We should take the children deep into the forest and leave them there” said the woodcutter’s wife.
She was actually the children’s stepmother, not really their mother and her husband struggled with the idea at first.
Then eventually, she got her own way.
Just outside, Hans had heard everything and the next day, when they were walking into the woods, he whispered to Gretel:
“I’ve got a plan! Give me your piece of bread....”
After a while they came to a clearing in the woods.
“Why don’t you both rest here for a little while” said their stepmother.“We’ll be back in a minute.”
But of course they never came back.
After a long wait for their parents to return, Hansel and Gretel fell asleep.
When they woke up, it was dark.
“Come on Gretel, let’s go home” said Hans, but the birds had eaten all of the crumbs he had dropped.
Hansel and Gretel were terribly lost.
Then, in the distance, they spotted a house.
Its roof was made of gingerbread and it was covered in peanut crackling, candy and gobstoppers.
“Yummy!” they thought.
Hans broke off a piece of gingerbread; and just as he did; they heard a voice:
“Nibble nibble little mouse! Who’s that nibbling on my house?” “Come inside” said the old lady, “There’s plenty more in here!”
So inside they went and the door slammed behind them. It was locked!
The old lady was actually a wicked witch.
“Now I’ve got you!” she laughed, “and I’m going to eat you all up,” she told Hans.
In the weeks that passed, the witch kept Hans in a cage and fattened him up until he was ready to eat.
When it was time, she asked Gretel to put on the oven.
“You girl, put on the oven,” she shouted; and she did.
As she was doing so, she had an idea. “What if.......”
Would Hansel and Gretel be able to escape from the wicked witch?